WP: Social Security Plan Meets Doubt in Iowa

[Pirate Smile]

Social Security Plan Meets Doubt in Iowa
GOP Lawmakers: Approach Isn't Selling

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page A04

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa, March 30 -- Two key GOP lawmakers who joined President Bush on Wednesday as he pitched restructuring Social Security said that Bush has failed to sell the American people on his plan to change the 70-year-old federal retirement system.

"Today, the public has not found his personal account approach compelling," Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) said in an interview late Tuesday, less than 24 hours before appearing with Bush at Kirkwood Community College here.

Leach went on to say that Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, a fellow Iowa Republican, "is convinced the momentum is not there, and I am convinced the partisan goodwill is not there." Leach is one of several GOP members who have refused to endorse private investment accounts, the centerpiece of the president's Social Security plan.

Grassley, chairman of the Senate panel responsible for Social Security, said in a separate interview Tuesday afternoon: "I don't think has made much progress on solving the solvency issue or what to do about personal accounts. It concerns me because as time goes on, I was hoping the president would be able to make my job easier. We are not hearing from the grass roots that, by golly, you guys in Congress have to work on this." Grassley supports private Social Security accounts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12913-2005Mar30.html